Winter

"Winter" is extracted from the multi-movement work “Cello Songs,” commissioned by Doug Bella and David Hunt for St. Charles Singers in memory of Doris J. Hunt.

On my living room wall, I have a letterpress broadside of the poem “Cello” by Dorianne Laux. Its central image is a dead tree, fallen into the arms of a living one. As years pass, it “…rubs its fallen body / against the living, building / its dead music / making its raw mark, / wearing the tough bough down / as it moans and bends, the deep / rosined bow sound of the living / shouldering the dead.”

Todd Boss, a frequent collaborator of mine, has created a new text inspired by Dorianne’s poem specifically for this musical setting.

When a dead tree
crosswise
in a living tree’s
arms lies
balefully bowing
in the glade,

winter
seems colder,
the earth a little
older,

the living
more forgiving,

and loving
well made.